Monday, March 9, 2009

Booming preparedness industry says people are stockpiling

Anxiety over the economy has generated a spike in other areas of the survival and emergency preparedness industry, too. Harry Weyandt is president of Nitro-Pak, a company that sells freeze-dried food, survival kits, fuel, camping gear and a variety of emergency preparedness products. “Since the middle of last September, the demand for our long-storing foods and supplies has been very high,” Weyandt writes in a column on his company's website.”"We are shipping orders as fast as possible, but the demand for preparedness supplies and long storing foods is gaining steam again.” Last summer, an ABC News report said “there are worrying signs appearing in the United States where some … locals are beginning to hoard supplies.” The report said some suppliers were concerned the U.S. government may be competing with consumers for stocks of storable food.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the story of Tony, a 44-year-old stockbroker who lives in a Sydney suburb with his wife and three children. Tony has been stockpiling supplies including rice, multivitamins, peanut butter, honey, soap and toilet paper. Simon Beer, who operates a survivalist website in Australia, told the newspaper he has seen a surge in interest lately. “Climate change, peak oil, the economic situation," Beer told the Herald, "people are seeing we're headed for catastrophic changes.”